The Gravy Train Has Left the Building

This post kind of just serves as a huge collective sigh as I mourn the passing of what seems to be the end of an era.

You guys, Ellie is a great sleeper. It took her a while to figure that out (remember my laments in the early days of being away from 10pm-4 am bouncing her on an exercise ball?), but once she got into a routine, she fell into a pattern of sleeping through the night fairly early on.

Which, I know is pretty common. But what I think wasn’t so common was how late she would sleep in each morning. For the past several months, we have had a sweet system, where Ellie would wake up sometime between 6 and 7 am, Ben would stumble to her room and get her and bring her back to our bed and I would literally just roll over and nurse her. (And Ben would head to the spare bedroom to get another hour of sleep before needing to get up for work) Sometimes I’d fall back asleep and the lucky kid would get unlimited access at the all-you-can-eat buffet, and I’d wake up to her STILL eating, even though a good long time would have gone by. Most mornings, I’d doze, she’d eat and after a few minutes, she’d finish.

And here’s where it got REAL good. She would just willingly and happily go back to bed. For at least another 2 hours. Sometimes more. As in, she’d STILL be sleeping at 10:30 in the morning. I KNOW right? And I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes that meant that I would still be sleeping at 10:30 in the morning. (just sometimes though…*ahem*). More realistically, she’d make noise around 9 or 9:30, but still, I’ll take that!

But, you guys, I think the day has come where Ellie has realized that STAYING awake at 7:30 in the morning is way more fun than sleeping in. She is literally the most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that I’ve ever seen her and she is just LOVING playing with us in bed while we desperately try and eke out a few more minutes of shut-eye.

I know, I know. I’ve had it good. And still, even if she does stay awake at 7:30, I know that is a very respectable hour of the morning and as an adult, I should be hauling my carcass out of bed at that time anyway, but I can’t help but mourn the loss of the sweet spot we’ve been living in the past 5 months.